HEALTH CARE SPENDING
By
Pamela Lockett
HCS/440
Jonathan Foskett-Instructor

Health care cost in America is currently the highest in the nation and rising quickly. The reason for the high cost in health care will be blamed on hospitals over charging to the Affordable Care Act to anything individuals can use to blame. Regardless of the reason health care continues to be a very lucrative business bringing in trillions of dollars yearly. The national health care expenditure has been estimated to be over three trillion dollars this year (2014) alone and it continues to rise. The federal government has estimated that they will spend about 3.7 trillion dollars for health care and of that amount 0.6 trillion will go towards various state and local government agencies (U.S. Government Spending.com). By the year twenty -twenty -one it is estimated that health care spending will make up almost twenty percent of the gross domestic product(GDP) or one fifth of the United States economy (Health Care Economics,T.Getzen, 2007).
It is said that Americans spend too much money on health care as a nation. More than one-sixth of the United States economy is devoted to health care which rises each year. Reasons for an increase spending with Americans can be contributed to Americans making more money, technical devices have made modern medicine more desirable such as microscopic surgery which requires a smaller incision and quicker recovery time, the fact that insurance companies cover the majority of the cost and the older American would rather have health care instead of food.
This is a outline of some of the ways there is unnecessary spending in health care,

A way to help repair the issue of unnecessary spending is to cut back the lengths of hospital stays which contributes in over 200 billion in revenue, unnecessary treatments and the high cost of prescription drugs. Also we can contribute one hundred ninety billion in administrative cost, seventy five billion in fraud. The United States cannot cut programs but they can examine all claims more clearly. Health care of the public is paid in many ways such as public and private health insurance which is in the area of two point six trillion dollars. Health care needs are paid for through private insurance, government funded programs and self-payers. With private insurance that is normally through the company one works for but individuals cannot afford because of a high deductible. There are also Government funded programs such as Medicaid which is responsible for the federal government's largest amount of money which is done through grants to different states. In 2012, the federal spending for Medicaid totaled about two hundred and sixty five billion dollars or forty five percent of all federal money given to states which covers children and some adults that are disabled, Medicare which was put in place for the elderly will spend about three hundred ninety billion dollars a year. Health care is a important service especially for children and the elderly. Health care is also important for those who work but cannot